(5. C. Results. II)
MUSICIANS SESSIONS: (5) MUSICAL MANIPULATIONS
The last intervention affected the music itself, the 'written' music, in other words. I manipulated the content of several pieces to analyze the reaction of the musicians-audience. Two of the 'manipulated' pieces were preceded by a 'standard' version played by myself before, so I could also search for inferences comparing the versions. The first manipulation altered the tempo: playing Bach's beginning of the Chaconne for the second time (6) clearly slower. Then, when I performed the second theme of Mozart's Violin Concerto in D Major (10), a fragment that had not been listened to before, I added ornamentations or almost improvisatory elements. The last manipulation could be found in the second version of Tchaikovsky's Concerto beginning (11), in which I played with absolutely free (almost random) dynamics.
IDENTIFICATION. The question related to these manipulations was not a quantitative one but about the identification of such manipulation: 'Did you notice any significant change in the typical/previous interpretation of the piece? In that case, how did it affect your engagement?'. I have to say that I did not read as many answers that took into account those manipulations as I expected. First of all, I have to admit that maybe the question was not as precise as required, because some listeners talked more about the extramusical or set-up element rather than about the musical alteration. The second thing I thought about was that the manipulations were perhaps not as evident as they could be, despite I believe they were quite obvious. Anyway, the answers demonstrate that the listeners did not give a lot of relevance to them, which is so far really revealing.
COMPARISON of VERSIONS. Analyzing the level of engagement of these three pieces, what can be seen is that this second slower version of Bach (6) was much more convincing than the previous one (2): rated 8 vs 7. However, it is important to take into consideration that this second Bach was also spiced with the sound of bells and the semicircle setting. The 'manipulated' beginning of Tchaikovsky (11) was scored with an 8, almost the same rating as its previous version (3), which scored 8.2. Here, the flower or stone and the circular setting were the other added elements. Despite having a slightly worse reception, it should be noted that the stone, for example, did not convince the audience at all as an extra-musical element. Therefore, perhaps there was a very good acceptance of this manipulation (the dynamics improvisation), which helped to maintain such a high score. Mozart's version (10), which had no antecedent, was rated with a 7.4.
GRAPHICAL SUMMARY
